Gen Z make Brussels sprouts cool! Sales soar 150% at Waitrose as dishes with chilli and honey are shared on Tiktok and trendy restaurants put them on the menu

Generation Z across the UK have discovered the appeal of Brussel sprout’s
READ MORE: Most Brits would prefer to have a takeaway than a traditional Christmas dinner, survey finds

Once thought of as a sad, soggy side to a turkey main, Brussel sprouts are now officially back on trend as Gen Z have dubbed them cool.

Despite being one the most controversial Christmas dinner sides for generations, British supermarket Waitrose have witnessed a whopping 150 per cent boom in sales compared to this time last year.

Their revival comes after a 2021 study conducted by Tesco, which found nearly one in four people aged 18-24 said they hate Brussel sprouts.

Fast forward two years, and Waitrose have predicted the sprouts sale increase will continue all the way until Christmas and beyond. And it’s not just Waitrose that has witnessed a rebirth of the cabbage-like dish- but social media too.

Pickled, roasted, smashed- you name it, Gen Z have shared their fashionable recipes to dress up the humble sprout- and it seems to be working because 92.7 million people on TikTok have searched ways to serve up the vegetable.

Brussel sprout’s have recently had a resurgence, and TikTok content creator’s have shared their favourite recipes. Pictured above is Balle Hurns filming a smashed Brussels sprouts recipe.

Trendy restaurants have implemented the dish in their yuletide additions, such as Marugame Udon’s Brussel Sprout Tempura, and amateur food influencers are sharing their ways to spice up the dish.

Home cooks are also seeking new recipes, and Waitrose.com found recipe searches for ‘shredded sprouts’ surged 607 per cent month on month and 65 per cent year on year.

Sam Witherington, Vegetable Buyer at Waitrose told FEMAIL: ‘The Brussels sprout was once consigned to Christmas lunch, over cooked and under loved.

‘But in recent years, as the sprout has made its way onto restaurant menus, home cooks are now getting creative too.

‘If these current sales of Brussel sprouts are anything to go by it’s going to be a bumper year for Brussels’.

Brands are locking in on it too. Cereal company SURREAL, who have launched a limited-edition festive Brussels Sprout Cereal just in time for Christmas.

SURREAL’s Brussels Sprout Cereal features suitably festive green hoops, with a flavour they’re claiming is similar to ‘honey-roasted sprouts’.

SURREAL’s co-founder, Kit Gammell said ‘Christmas is a time of peace, joy and indulgence. Luckily for those feeling they need a break from the endless pigs-in-blankets and cream-on-everything, our Cereal Scientists have been back in the lab experimenting. What’s they’ve come up with is decidedly divisive’.

One TikTok influencer recreated Brussel sprout’s as a crispy snack covered in breadcrumbs. Pictured above is Maya Leinenbach

Another influencer enjoyed the vegetable with minimal changes, and simply dipped them into gravy. Pictured above is @ggflavour

Food content creator @cookiterica enjoyed her Brussel sprouts pickled, and quickly went back for a second helping

London brand Sauce Shop also have Brussels Sprout Ketchup, while drinks company Pickering’s make a Brussels Sprout Gin/

Research from Hovis further consolidated the resurgence of Brussel sprouts.

Brussel sprouts, chestnuts and pancetta recipe

Ingredients

Brussels sprouts, four per person or more if you are a sprout lover
Five slices pancetta, cut into squares
Eight peeled chestnuts
20g butter
A pinch of sea salt

Method

Cut all of the Brussels sprouts in half discarding the outer damaged leaves
Blanch in boiling water for two minutes only, being careful not to overcook them
In a large non-stick pan on a medium heat, add the squares of pancetta
Add the Brussels sprouts to the pan along with the butter
Once the Brussel sprouts have coloured and are fully cooked add the chestnuts and warm through
Keep warm until ready to use

Source- Chef Mark Greenaway of Pivot in 3 Henrietta Street

The company polled the public on their favourite Christmas sandwich fillings and found an impressive 60 percent of Brits to be in favour of sprouts in their sarnie.

Proving that sprouts aren’t just for Christmas day, food influencers have also shared their creative recipes to dress up the vegetable.

In one instance, a Gen Z food influencer combines smashed sprouts with Sriracha, maple syrup, and olive oil, to create an Asian-infused dish.

Elsewhere, a vegan food influencer covered the vegetable breadcrumbs to produce a dish even the biggest haters of sprouts might take a liking too.

And another kept it simple by having a huge bowl of the green vegetable dipped in Bisto gravy.

One influencer teased her viewers with a taste test of picked brussel sprouts – and she quickly went in for a second helping.

It comes after farmers reckoned they have found a way to get people to like Brussels sprouts – by making sure they are all the same size so they can be cooked evenly.

To help them pick matching sprouts, bosses at R&K Drysdale, one of the UK’s largest brassica growers, have invested in a hightech grading machine, nicknamed the ‘sproutatron’.

Working with Tesco to supply around 70 per cent of its sprouts, Drysdale uses the machine – which looks like the sort of gadget that could be in a Wallace & Gromit movie – to size the sprouts accurately with the push of a button.

They will be more consistently sized in packets, making the cooking process more even.

It means an end to the lottery of some people getting small and overcooked soggy sprouts, while others crunch through harder big ones.

New milder and sweeter varieties, particularly Cobelius, have been introduced too.

A survey by Tesco revealed that the number of 18-to-24-year-olds who claim to ‘love’ sprouts has risen from 26 per cent in 2021 to 44 per cent this year.

The ‘sproutatron’ works by taking eight photographs of each sprout as it travels along the conveyor belt, assessing it for a predetermined size.

And it can take pictures of 25 sprouts per second. The computerised grader then identifies all sprouts of the same size.

Mark Greenway at Pivot recommends adding pancetta and chestnuts to the cabbage-like vegetable (pictured)

Maple pecan Brussel sprouts recipe

Ingredients

Two dozen Brussels sprouts, trimmed and cut in half
Two tbsp. olive oil
One tbsp. butter
255g pecan halves
Two tbsp. pure maple syrup (preferably amber syrup for its rich taste)
Salt and pepper, to taste

Method

Add oil to skillet on medium-high heat. When hot, add the Brussels sprouts. Sauté for about eight to 10 minutes, stirring fairly often, or until the Brussels sprouts are nicely browned and tender crisp.
Reduce the heat to medium-low and stir in the butter and pecans. Cook for four to five mins.
Stir in the maple syrup and cook for about a minute. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from the heat and serve immediately.

Source- Maple

One recipe adds a sweet twist to Brussel sprouts (pictured), and adds Maple syrup and peanuts

These are sent into the same lane to be processed. It means that when the sprouts are bagged up they are all of a uniform size.

Tesco produce buyer Sam Miller said: ‘Thanks to the latest technology, our customers will be able to buy some of the very best-tasting and freshest sprouts.

‘These machines speed up the grading procedure, which drastically cuts the time it takes to get the sprouts from the field to our shelves.’

Gavin Milne, general manager of Drysdale – based in Cockburnspath, Scotland – said: ‘We work closely with seed houses onvarietal development and taste, with the aim being to eliminate varieties that are more bitter than others.’

Around 25 per cent of the annual consumption of Brussels sprouts is at Christmas. Tesco expects to sell around 1.5million kilograms (3.3million pounds) of sprouts in the two weeks before the big day.

They are so named after becoming popular in the Belgian capital in the 16th century, but come from Iran and Afghanistan originall

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